The first is to sort out the charts, now Hong Tao has a relatively complete chart of the South China Sea, starting from Guangzhou, south to Kalimantan Island, west is the west exit of the Strait of Malacca, east to the west of Luzon Island, most of the ports, islands are vivid, not only detailed but also accurate. Theoretically, the waters of the South China Sea can already be smoothed. However, it is not enough for him to sail by himself, in addition to exploring and playing, he can't do fart by relying on one person and one ship, and if he wants to develop, he must have a group of people. Therefore, he wanted to divide this sea area into several parts according to its function, and then transcribe it and give it to Po Jiao, Carl, and even more people to use alone.

The captain in charge of whaling only needs to get the charts of the central seas; The captain of the slave ship had to provide them with charts of the different countries, the vicinity of the port, and a chart for the transportation to and from the West Turtle Continent; In the future, there will also be captains who transport goods and patrol, and they will still have to obtain the corresponding charts. Although only one copy of each copy needs to be transcribed, it is also a lot of work, not only to carefully draw according to the scale, but also to consider it more comprehensively.

The second is the progress of the construction of the new ship, which is 30 meters long and has surpassed Hong Tao's knowledge reserves. If he can barely manage the construction of the two 17-meter-long sailboats in the past, then he also crosses the river by feeling the stones for this new boat, finding faults while designing, and he doesn't know whether the final construction can meet the original design intention. After all, few people in later generations would build such a large pure wooden sail warship, and many materials Hong Tao had only seen in books, but had never seen the real thing, let alone practiced it himself.

Compared with the Predator and the Whaler, the new ship has changed a lot. It is no longer a pure V-shaped bottom, but has become another deformation, a U-shaped bottom that is narrow at the top and wide at the bottom. This shape is more stable and has a larger loading capacity, but correspondingly, it has a deeper draft, and it has completely become a deep-sea warship, and it can no longer casually walk along the coast, and if you are not careful, you will have to run aground or run aground.

It was inspired by the 19th-century European sail warships, and Hong Tao felt that it was the most reasonable, practical and safe. This has nothing to do with the national self-esteem of any country, science is science, and science knows no borders. It is impossible to say that the European sail warships, which have been perfected and practiced for hundreds of years, are not comparable to the ancient Chinese sailing technology, the reason is only because they are Chinese, which is pure idealism.

Is there any advanced technology in the technology of Chinese sailing boats? This issue needs to be discussed in a clear era, otherwise it will not make any sense. If you put it before the 16th century, Chinese sailing ships did have their own unique and advanced places. But after the 16th century, it basically has little reference value, especially as a reference for warships, which can be said to be useless.

This is not a deliberate disparagement, but a respectable evaluation. The reason is simple, China was not a seafaring country in the Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties, and these dynasties had a dispensable attitude towards navigation, and even very resistant to the sea. Under this mentality, not to mention ocean-going warships, even civilian ships will not have any development. However, the world has not waited for China, and European countries have always competed with the sea, and even regard the sea as more important than the land. After countless naval battles, the experience summed up is also reflected in their shipbuilding technology.

What Hong Tao ultimately wanted was a warship, a large warship that could fight across the ocean, and the only thing he had to refer to was the European sail warship, and there was no other choice. In fact, Hong Tao didn't think like this from the beginning, he also had a little national grudge, so he made up his brain, since the ship type should be borrowed from the Europeans, can the sail be replaced with a unique Chinese hard sail. This is not a delusional idea, he has seen in the North American waters of later generations with modern hard sails, and the performance is also very good, even more agile than soft sails. However, he forgot one of the key problems, those modern hard sails are not only modern materials, but also the operation is done through computers and electromechanical systems, without the assistance of these high-tech technologies, whether modern hard sails can be built is a problem.

This suggestion was first supported by Boss Wen and Elder Wen with their hands and feet, because they were more familiar with hard sails, so everyone worked hard for five days, made a small hard sail out of whale skin and baleen, and mounted it on the Predator for several days of sea trials, and the results made Hong Tao very satisfied. After replacing the original mainsail with a hard sail, the speed of the Predator has been increased by 2 knots, and the difficulty of operation has been reduced a lot, and the hard mainsail can also be used with the soft spinnaker and ball sail, without adding too much weight, this combination of hard sail and soft sail sail makes the Predator more flexible, faster and easier to operate. If Hong Tao wanted to, he could even sail the 17-meter-long sailboat alone, and its performance was almost catching up with the later generations of fiberglass cruising sailboats that used electricity to drive lifting sails.

Hong Tao was very, very proud of the results of this test, or he was very proud. Hard sails are better than soft sails, in a sense, it shows that the Chinese are still very smart, let's not use the soft sails of you Westerners, how can you drop!

However, science is science, and Westerners have known about Chinese hard sails for a long time, so why don't they use them? Could it be that they are also nationalists like Hong Tao? No, even if there is, it won't be all over Europe. In fact, Europeans are very modest, they are willing to take the initiative to learn even the technology of the rival Arabs, and even learn it secretly, there is no reason to be so resistant to the Chinese technology far away in the East and has no conflict with them. There must be a reason why I don't learn, and this reason is technical, and it has nothing to do with ideology and ethnicity.

The facts gave Hong Tao a big mouth, and when the bigger, taller hard sails hung on the mast of the new ship, he was a little dumbfounded before he raised the sails and set sail. This sail is a bit heavy! Its weight is more than 900 Song catties, which is more than a ton when converted into metric. Why is it so heavy? Because the top of the hard sail is the same as the umbrella, it must be fixed with a sail support. Ten meters wide, more than 20 meters high hard sail and then use whale baleen as a sail to support it is obviously not possible, even bamboo can not hold it, can only use wood, too thin is not enough, plus fish skin, rope, pulley, this is even heavier.

If it is just the point, Hong Tao will endure it, but after this sail is hung, the speed of the new ship can only reach more than 3 knots, and after hanging a 15-meter-high auxiliary sail on the auxiliary mast, the speed is still not more than 5 knots, and then the front spinnaker and ball sail are raised, and the full crosswind is more than 7 knots.

"Hey...... If you don't practice, you don't have a say, Carl, what is the wind speed? Hong Tao stood on the back bow of the new ship, looking at the two large sails that were finely crafted like handicrafts, and shook his head helplessly. Asking Carl about the wind speed is just a psychological comfort, even if he doesn't ask, he doesn't look at the anemometer on the top of the mast, just by the feeling on his face, he can still roughly judge the approximate wind speed at this time.

"Level 4 or so, my lord." As soon as Carl got on the boat, he could see that Hong Tao was not very happy, and why he also understood. Compared with the Predator and the Whaler, this new ship is tall and mighty, but it is too slow, even he is not satisfied, and it is strange that Hong Tao can be satisfied.

"Hey! Get out of the way! Dodge! Come on...... Jump into the sea! Suddenly, Hong Tao shouted at the sailors on the deck who were operating the sails with his little eyes, he was really hoarse, jumping and waving his hands while shouting.

"Click...... Bang Dang...... Ah......" Carl hadn't figured out what Hong Tao was sick with, but he felt a dark cloud pressing down overhead. With a piercing tearing sound, the mainmast broke from the middle and lower part, and the wooden pole more than 20 meters high and thigh-thick slapped obliquely towards the bow of the ship, and the two sailors who had not heard what Hong Tao was shouting were instantly knocked down by the mast with the sail, and the ropes on the entire deck flew wildly, and many sailors jumped into the sea, describing the situation on the ship in two words, it was miserable!

One dead and one wounded, this is Hong Tao's ambition! Disrespect for science is generally a consequence of this! The person who died was still the only little grandson of the Weng family. Although the Weng family did not accuse Hong Tao or look at him with hatred, they just cried and buried the body of the 17-year-old on the hillside to the east, but Hong Tao still felt that their cries were like a judgment on themselves. If someone died in the war, even if it was Bo Jiao, he would not feel so guilty.

"Son, it's not your fault, the Tan family dies every year, if it weren't for you, he might have died a long time ago." Old man Rong was still so calm, and what he said was not emotional at all, he not only said this to Hong Tao, but also to the orphans and widows of the Weng family.

"It's different...... In the evening, I went to apologize to Granny Weng's family...... Wember, shipbreak! Hong Tao was embarrassed to go to Weng's house to attend the funeral, and a lively young man was just gone, because he wanted to try......

"Ahh Dismantling, dismantling! No, my lord! It's not the ship's fault, it's a good ship! I'm going to kowtow to the Weng family! I passed my grandson to the Weng family! You can't dismantle the ship! As soon as Wen Lao Er heard Hong Tao say that he was going to dismantle the ship, he thought that Hong Tao had spread all his anger on this ship, for a shipwright who had never built a big ship for most of his life, this ship was closer than his grandson, a fifty-year-old man, and he knelt on the ground, holding Hong Tao's legs to prevent him from moving.

"Hey! It's not a complete demolition, it's a transformation! If you don't need a hard sail, you have to use a soft sail, we have to change the mast again, and we have to add a mast to the bow! Hong Tao grabbed Wen Laoer's neck and lifted him up, and asked such an old person to kneel for himself, isn't this a long life, and he still wants to live a few more years.